Colourful Can Can is set to delight Ilkley Playhouse audience (From Wharfedale Observer)

Colourful Can Can is set to delight Ilkley Playhouse audience

9:00am Thursday 7th February 2013 in News

The musical world of Gay Paris in the 1890s will burst onto the screen in glorious Technicolor at Ilkley Playhouse on Sunday, at 8 pm, when Ilkley Film Society present Jean Renoir's classic 1954 film French Cancan as a special event.

Based on the true story of the founder of the Moulin Rouge, played by the great Jean Gabin, the cancan scenes are breathtaking.

Francoise Arnoul and Maria Felix also star in this story about Henri Danglard, proprietor of the fashionable (but bankrupt) cafe 'Le Paravent Chinois' which features his mistress, belly dancer Lola.

Danglard, goes slumming in Montmarte (circa 1890) where the then-old-fashioned cancan is still danced. There, he conceives the idea of reviving the cancan as the feature of a new, more popular establishment...and meets Nini, a laundress and natural dancer, whom he hopes to star in his new show. But a tangled maze of jealousies intervenes The superbly restored film will be screened in a high-definition Blu-ray presentation. Tickets for those who are not members of the Film Society are just £2 (students £1), and can be reserved by phoning Richard Fort on (01535) 653471.

Further information on this season's programme can be found online at: ilkleyfilmsociety.org.uk